On April 30, the new world chess champion became known. It was grandmaster Ding Liren, who beat Jan Nepomniachtchi in a tie-break. Liren became the first Chinese grandmaster to win the title of world champion, and the tournament itself was the second most watched in the history of chess broadcasts on live-streaming platforms.
FIDE World Championship 2023 was held in Kazakhstan at the St Regis Hotel from 9 to 30 April. Over 15 days of broadcasting, the games gained more than 11.4 million Hours Watched, and the average one-time audience of the championship was over 148,000 viewers. Noteworthy, the streams of the event were conducted on YouTube and Twitch, as well as new platform Kick.com.
The final tie-break game gathered the most viewers when Liren declined an opportunity to tie the game in a difficult situation and was able to pull out a victory at the end. At its peak, the match gathered 572.3K concurrent spectators.
The FIDE World Championship 2023 has become the second most-watched tournament in the history of chess in terms of viewership, surpassed only by the World Championship 2021. In terms of total view time, the competition lagged behind the FIDE WC 2021 by only 10%, and the peak audience was just 7% lower. An excellent result for a tournament where the great and terrible Magnus Carlsen did not play.
Most popular & most watched chess events ever
All viewership statistics of chess competitions on streaming platforms (Twitch, YouTube, and others) are available on Esports Charts. With an active PRO subscription, you will receive additional data on the popularity of events in different languages and on individual broadcast channels.
